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"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "'", said to have been spoken in the 17th or 18th century by "a great
princess Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a sub ...
" upon being told that the
peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
had no
bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made foo ...
. The French phrase mentions
brioche Brioche (, also , , ) is a bread of French origin whose high egg and butter content gives it a rich and tender crumb. Chef Joël Robuchon described it as "light and slightly puffy, more or less fine, according to the proportion of butter and e ...
, a bread enriched with butter and eggs, considered a luxury food. The quote is taken to reflect either the princess's frivolous disregard for the starving peasants or her poor understanding of their plight. While the phrase is commonly attributed to
Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...
, there are references to it prior to the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
, and historians do not agree that she is likely to have said it.


Origins

The phrase appears in book six of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Rev ...
's '' Confessions'', whose first six books were written in 1765 and published in 1782. In the book, Rousseau recounts an episode in which he was seeking bread to accompany some wine he had stolen. Feeling too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he recalled the words of a "great princess": Translated from Rousseau does not name the "great princess", and he may have invented the
anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
, as the ''Confessions'' is not considered entirely factual.


Attribution to Marie Antoinette

The phrase was supposedly said by Marie Antoinette in 1789, during one of the famines in France during the reign of her husband,
King Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
. But it was not attributed to her until half a century later. Although anti-monarchists never cited the anecdote during the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
, it acquired great symbolic importance in subsequent historical accounts when pro-revolutionary commentators employed the phrase to denounce the upper classes of the ''
Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is ...
'' as oblivious and . As one biographer of the Queen notes, it was a particularly powerful phrase because "the staple food of the French peasantry and the working class was bread, absorbing 50 percent of their income, as opposed to 5 percent on fuel; the whole topic of bread was therefore the result of obsessional national interest." Rousseau's first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published when she was 26, eight years after she became queen. The increasing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette in the final years before the outbreak of the French Revolution also likely influenced many to attribute the phrase to her. During her marriage to Louis XVI, her critics often cited her perceived frivolousness and very real extravagance as factors that significantly worsened France's dire financial straits. Her Austrian birth and her gender also diminished her credibility further in a country where
xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
and
chauvinism Chauvinism is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. It can be described as a form of extreme patriotism ...
were beginning to exert major influence in national politics. While the causes of France's economic woes extended far beyond the royal family's spending, anti-monarchist polemics demonized Marie Antoinette as ''Madame Déficit'', who had single-handedly ruined France's finances. These '' libellistes'' printed stories and articles vilifying her family and their courtiers with exaggerations, fictitious anecdotes, and outright lies. In the tempestuous political climate, it would have been a natural slander to put the famous words into the mouth of the widely scorned queen. The phrase was attributed to Marie Antoinette by
Alphonse Karr Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (24 November 1808 – 29 September 1890) was a French critic, journalist, and novelist. Life Karr was born in Paris to German pianist and composer Henri Karr (1784–1842), and after being educated at the Co ...
in ''Les Guêpes'' of March 1843.Campion-Vincent, Véronique & Shojaei Kawan, Christine, "Marie-Antoinette et son célèbre dire : deux scénographies et deux siècles de désordres, trois niveaux de communication et trois modes accusatoires", ''Annales historiques de la Révolution française'', 2002
full text
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Attribution to Maria Theresa of Spain

Objections to the legend of Marie Antoinette and the comment centre on arguments concerning the Queen's personality, internal evidence from members of the French royal family and the date of the saying's origin. According to
Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (' Pakenham; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and p ...
, the notorious story of the ignorant princess was first said 100 years ''before'' Marie Antoinette in relation to Marie-Thérèse, the wife of
Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...
, citing the memoirs of
Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...
, who was only fourteen when Rousseau's ''Confessions'' were written and whose own memoirs were published much later. Louis XVIII does not mention Marie Antoinette in his account, but says that the story was an old legend and that the family always believed that Maria Theresa had originated the phrase. However, Louis XVIII is as likely as others to have had his recollection affected by the quick spreading and distorting of Rousseau's original remark. Fraser also points out in her biography that Marie Antoinette was a generous patron of charity and moved by the plight of the poor when it was brought to her attention, thus making the statement out of character for her. This makes it even more unlikely that Marie Antoinette ever said the phrase. A second consideration is that there were no actual
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accom ...
s during the reign of King
Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...
and only two incidents of serious bread shortages, the first in April–May 1775, a few weeks before the king's coronation on 11 June 1775, and the second in 1788, the year before the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...
. The 1775 shortages led to a series of riots that took place in northern, eastern and western France, known at the time as the Flour War (''guerre des farines''). Letters from Marie Antoinette to her family in
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populou ...
at this time reveal an attitude largely contrary to the spirit of ''Let them eat brioche:'' Another problem with the dates surrounding the attribution is that when the phrase first appeared, Marie Antoinette was not only too young to have said it, but living outside France as well. Although published in 1782, Rousseau's ''Confessions'' were finished thirteen years prior in 1769. Marie Antoinette, only fourteen years old at the time, would not arrive at Versailles from Austria until 1770. Since she was completely unknown to him at the time of writing, she could not have possibly been the "great princess" he mentioned.


Other attributions

Another hypothesis is that after the revolution, the phrase, which was initially attributed to a great variety of princesses of the French royal family, eventually stuck on Marie Antoinette because she was in effect the last and best-remembered "great princess" of Versailles. The myth had also been previously attributed to two of
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...
’s daughters: Madame Sophie and Madame Victoire. In his 1853 novel ''Ange Pitou'',
Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where '' '' is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer ...
attributes the quote to one of Marie Antoinette's favourites, the Duchess of Polignac. Also- The term "Cake" was commonly used to describe the burnt, blackened layer of dough that built up on the bottom of the communal outdoor bake ovens used by many poorer folk at the time. Thus a comment to "Let them eat cake." was a suggestion that the poor should consume the burnt, black and often moldy dough scraping from the ovens.


Similar phrases

The ''
Book of Jin The ''Book of Jin'' is an official Chinese historical text covering the history of the Jin dynasty from 266 to 420. It was compiled in 648 by a number of officials commissioned by the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, with chancellor Fang Xu ...
'', a 7th-century chronicle of the Chinese Jin Dynasty, reports that when Emperor Hui (259–307) of
Western Jin Western may refer to: Places * Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia * Western world, countries that ...
was told that his people were starving because there was no rice, he said, "Why don't they eat porridge with (ground) meat?" (何不食肉糜), showing his unfitness. In 2016, after an ill-received series of articles were published which suggested that out-of-work Kentucky coalminers should "learn to code" in order to support their families, the same phrase has been used repeatedly in cynical repudiation and harassment against journalists who likewise find themselves out of work or are perceived as being out of touch or lacking in journalistic integrity.


See also

*
Noblesse oblige ''Noblesse oblige'' (; ; literally “nobility obliges”) is a French expression from a time when French (more specifically, Anglo-Norman) was the language of the English nobility, and retains in English the meaning that nobility extends be ...


References


Notes

:a.In an earlier 1841 volume o
''Les Guêpes''
a slightly different version of the famous phrase was quoted: ''"S’il n’y a pas de pain on mangera de la brioche"''.


Bibliography

* Barker, Nancy N., ''Let Them Eat Cake: The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution'', Historian, Summer 1993, 55:4:709. * Campion-Vincent, Véronique and Shojaei Kawan, Christine, ''Marie-Antoinette et son célèbre dire : deux scénographies et deux siècles de désordres, trois niveaux de communication et trois modes accusatoires'', ''Annales historiques de la Révolution française'', 2002, p. 327 {{DEFAULTSORT:Let Them Eat Cake Political quotes Marie Antoinette English phrases 1780s neologisms Works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Misquotations